Archive for the ‘Archeology’ Category

One of the most significant global committees that you never heard of summoned a couple of hundred experts to the island of Menorca, Spain last week. The meeting involved politics, the remnants of great civilizations, human catastrophes, architectural triumphs, religious works of art and architecture, use of tourism, the rise and fall of empires, and did we say politics?

The federal government should fix or drop new regulations that throttle scientific study of America’s heritage Thousands of remains could be made inaccessible to researchers. In our view, the new regulations should be repealed or, at least, revised to distinguish different classes of unidentified remains.

A new analysis of the rare mitochondrial DNA haplogroup C4c in Native American populations shows that it has a parallel genetic history with the X2a haplogroup thought by some to indicate a connection between early Paleoindians in eastern North America and the Upper Paleolithic Solutrean culture in France and Spain.

The excavations department at the Aleppo Archeology and Museums Directorate uncovered an ancient burial chamber dating back to early Bronze Age at the village of Sousan, 12 kilometers west of Ein al-Arab town in Aleppo governorate.

The recent discovery of a pendant at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa (in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa) has given rise to intense debate: it may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest found to date at open-air excavations throughout the whole of the Iberian Peninsula

Within the next few years, one of the 26 teams competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) competition will hopefully claim the $20-million grand prize by successfully landing its privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, traveling at least 500 meters across the lunar surface, and transmitting video and images back to Earth

An international team of researchers has used ancient DNA to shed new light on the realism of horses depicted in prehistoric cave paintings. The team, which includes researchers from the University of York, has found that all the color variations seen in Paleolithic cave paintings — including distinctive “leopard” spotting — existed in pre-domestic horse populations, lending weight to the argument that the artists were reflecting their natural environment.

All across Texas, the bones of history lie in watery graves. From the ribs of sunken ships to the grave sites of prehistoric Texans, uncounted treasures abound beneath the surface of rivers and lakes. For state archaeologists, these sites are untapped treasures — hard to reach but relatively protected.

In the middle of Mexico City’s historical downtown, where the modern bustle leaves most visitors in a daze, archaeologists have unearthed something altogether more serene: a potential clue in their quest to find the long sought-after tombs of Aztec emperors.

The Maya lowlands during the ancient Maya Classic period (250 – 900 A.D.) were known to have been among the densest populated areas in the world. And archaeologists have estimated that, even in places such as the southern Maya Mountains area of Belize where geographic and other environmental conditions could be assumed to have mitigated population growth, population density has been estimated to have been approximately 300 persons per square kilometer at one time.

Archaeologists lifted a 300-year-old cannon from the pirate Blackbeard’s ship off the coast of North Carolina today.
The eight-foot-long cannon was covered in sand and ocean debris called “concretion,” which will take archaeologists and students at East Carolina University as many as eight years to crack through before getting to the metal cannon, according to Jennifer Woodward, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, which oversees the project.